Showing posts with label Laptop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laptop. Show all posts

Saturday, 15 December 2012

Creating a custom montitor configuration in mate Linux laptop that sitcks!

Scenario:
One laptop and one external monitor.
The laptop screen is the primary monitor (LVDS1)
The external monitor is the secondary monitor, orientated left (HDMI1)

Problem:
When the lid of the laptop is put down and then raised, the screens do not retain resolution settings and does either one of the following:
Laptop LCD off
Laptop LCD resolution wrong
External monitor rotated back to normal instead of orientated left.

Why this is happening:

It seems that there are too many things that can cause the screen resolution to change, including ACPI daemon, mate screensaver, lid.sh....  Too many cooks spoil the broth....

Solutions:
The manual solution is to unplug the HDMI cable and lower and raise the lid and then plug HDMI back in.  Not good enough.

Control freak Solution:
First get your screen setup right, use the 'mate-display-properties' to get your resolution and orientation correct.

Then open 'mateconf-editor' and tweak these settings:
apps/mate-power-manager/buttons  lid_ac = nothing
This will now prevent your system form changing your monitor settings on your behalf.


In a command line as a normal user excute the xrandr command.

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2266 x 1440, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS1 connected 1366x768+0+327 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm
   1366x768       60.0*+
   1360x768       59.8     60.0 
   1024x768       60.0 
   800x600        60.3     56.2 
   640x480        59.9 
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 connected 900x1440+1366+0 left (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 410mm x 256mm
   1440x900       59.9*+   75.0 
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0 
   1280x960       60.0 
   1152x864       75.0 
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0 
   832x624        74.6 
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2 
   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0 
   720x400        70.1 
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis


translating from the xrandr output, a single line command to reset the screen to the desired dimension can be found:

xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768 --rotate normal --output HDMI1 --mode 1440x900 --rotate left --right-of LVDS1

Now at this stage, depending on your situation, you can 'hardcode' you configuration into your system and make it stick OR crate a xrandr script that is manually activated.

looking in /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn shows that the script /etc/acpi/lid.sh
 is called when the lid button is activated

# /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn
# Called when the user closes or opens the lid

event=button[ /]lid
action=/etc/acpi/lid.sh


Having a look in the last line of /etc/acpi/lid.sh yeilds this:

[ -x /etc/acpi/local/lid.sh.post ] && /etc/acpi/local/lid.sh.post

This file lid.sh.post, if exists is excututed when the lis switch is activated.  Note that this file does not exist by default, so it needs to be made.

sudo mkdir /etc/acpi/local/
sudo touch lid.sh.post

add this to the file lid.sh.post

#! /bin/sh
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768 --rotate normal --pos 0x327 --output HDMI1 --mode 1440x900 --rotate left --pos 1366x0 --right-of LVDS1


then make it excutable:
sudo chmod +x lid.sh.post

Test to see if the lid closing and opening changes the screen setup.


References:
http://dosnlinux.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/xubuntu-acpi-the-lid/


WindyCityTech Blogger
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Sunday, 10 July 2011

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 (1012) Netbook Review

I got this the other day...

Not to bad, got rid of windows crap and installed Ubuntu / Backtrack5

Good battery, fanless, sd card reader...

Touchpad sucks big time, mouse buttons are integrated on the touch pad and it tends to make the mouse jump when a click is done.

Mine has a TV tuner as well.

Since it is fanless, it seem to be hot under the cpu side, this makes the keyboard hot on the right side and  cold on the left.

Function keys do not work unless a fn key is pressed first.  This means changing consoles requires 5 keys to be hit now.















WindyCityTech Blogger
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Friday, 6 May 2011

MSI L1350D Netbook Wireless Lan Chipset


I have been thinking avbout buying the MSI L1350D Netbook. The price at Officeworks in Australia is $249, which is a reasonable price in my opinion.

I went to a store to check it out and on initial imression it looks great.  The keyboard has nice raised keys, the hinges are good, it has becent ventilation and the DC power plug looks meaty (unlike some eeepc's).

The wireless chipset on this one is a Ralink RT2860, i could see it though the ventilation slots.

It has Realtek sound card as well.

Should be good with Aircrack-ng, rf mon seems to work with what I have seen on the net.

The only thing that looks yuck on it is the VGA connector, would be nice if it was a HDMI.

Thursday, 28 April 2011

Installing Ubuntu 11.04 on a Acer 5742 Laptop

Just downloaded Ubuntu 11.04 onto my Acer 5742 laptop. 

I decided to copy the image to a portable HDD using UNetbootin instead of wasting a CD.

Booting from the portable HDD was ultra fast, ~10sec.



Upon booting it live, the mouse touchpad was not working, a external mouse was required to navigate.  This was not a issue after the install.


Installing was not a chore either, I chose to apply the updates as it installed.  This requires a internet connection.

 
Ubuntu downloaded the necessary binary blob for the f'ked Broadcom wireless module, i'm going to get rid of this soon, replacing it with a Atheros.


Ubuntu supports a new look called unity, getting used to the new look was too hard for me so I decided to change back to the Gnome classic look.  This can be accomplished if you log out and check the setting 'Gnome Classic' when you enter you password.

One of the best things about 11.04 is it finally has a file search that actually works good.  Yay!




Also it comes with Firefox4, its layout has changed slightly too.



All round the new Ubuntu is give the user more screen area which makes it overall appearance cleaner and much more trendy.

One thing that caught my eye was some program called Zeiteist Datahub which loaded on startup.  There is not much info about this on the net but what it does is it gathers info from the user and passes it to other programs to make usage more integrated.  If you are paranoid you may want to apt-get remove it.

Natty Narwhal, Price free and heaps better than Windows!

Tuesday, 19 April 2011

HP dv9000 Hinge replacement

Another faulty HP product being fixed, this time the right laptop hinge sized and snapped in half.  Fortunately the plastic casing risers were not broken.

Ordering some HK replacement hinges from eBay and following the instructions on this website fixed the problem.

Here are some pics if the hinge job.

Snapped




New Hinge from eBay $10 Delivered!


Webcam

Wireless Antenna 1

Wireless Antenna 2

Sunday, 27 March 2011

Protect your identy from hackers on your webcam laptop

My laptop (Acer 5742) has a built-in webcam, however unlike my last laptop there is no operation LED and way of knowing if it is on or not.  Just in case someone did get into my system from outside and manage to switch on the webcam, I have constructed a tertiary level of protection just by using a piece of black tape.



Get a length of tape 2 inches long, fold one third over itself, stick side to sticky side.  Then mount it on the laptops webcam.


If you ever need to use the webcam, just fold the cover back.